If this is only to connect a harddrive, then wow! Yep, I had an old Mac Book with firewire, and that had all my drives and my soundcard connected up to it. By the time that Mac Book died, the whole body was smashed to shit. I replaced it with a Mac Book Pro because I didn't want to have to replace a rather expensive sound card. It was actually cheaper to buy the mac than replace all my drive caddies and interface. The mac book, was already starting to be overpriced for what was a consumer product, and certainly wouldn't be up to the rigours of music or video production, or anything much beyond facebook and updating your ipod.
Are you going to freakout when USB 2 gets replaced with USB 3 ports? FW is old, and the way it works is being superseeded by USB and "thunderbolt" devices.
Compare this to the the minefield that is selecting a PC with a reliable FW port, let alone a laptop, then I don't think Apple are shafting people too much. No PC laptop even offers you buss power from FW which is pretty stupid of you want to be mobile whilst working.
Is this someone moaning about FW ports???
If this is only to connect a harddrive, then wow! Yep, I had an old Mac Book with firewire, and that had all my drives and my soundcard connected up to it. By the time that Mac Book died, the whole body was smashed to shit. I replaced it with a Mac Book Pro because I didn't want to have to replace a rather expensive sound card. It was actually cheaper to buy the mac than replace all my drive caddies and interface. The mac book, was already starting to be overpriced for what was a consumer product, and certainly wouldn't be up to the rigours of music or video production, or anything much beyond facebook and updating your ipod.
Are you going to freakout when USB 2 gets replaced with USB 3 ports? FW is old, and the way it works is being superseeded by USB and "thunderbolt" devices.
Compare this to the the minefield that is selecting a PC with a reliable FW port, let alone a laptop, then I don't think Apple are shafting people too much. No PC laptop even offers you buss power from FW which is pretty stupid of you want to be mobile whilst working.